Delhi-based restaurant search and discovery portal Zomato is in talks to raise about $100 million in fresh funding. The news came just after Zomato acquired Urbanspoon, its US-based rival for about $60 million in one of the biggest overseas deals by an Indian startup.
After acquisition of Urbanspoon, Zomato marks its entry into the United States, Canada and Australia, which will result in its presence in 22 countries, covering more than one million restaurants.
"It's an all cash deal. We pretty much had to spend all our last round of funding on this and it's sort of a big deal for us," Zomato Chief Executive Deepinder Goyal told Reuters in a phone interview.
The acquisition marked Zomato's entry into the United States, Canada and Australia, and brought it into direct competition with Yelp, Zagat and OpenTable.
Zomato, backed by private equity investors including Sequoia Capital and India's Info Edge India Ltd, is talking to existing as well as new investors to raise around $100 million in the next 30 days, he said. It raised $60 million in November led by Info Edge and Vy Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital. In November 2013, Zomato raised $37 million from Sequoia & InfoEdge to expands service in new countries
The startup is likely to be valued at about $1 billion after completing the fresh round of investment, Goyal said. Founded in 2008, Zomato is currently valued at around $660 million.
Zomato since last year is in acquisition spree, last month Zomato acquired Cibando, Italy’s popular restaurant search service. And in July 2014 acquired Menumania, New Zealand’s popular restaurant discovery service
Advertisements